Michael Shea (American author) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Michael Shea
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| Born | July 3, 1946 Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Died | February 16, 2014 (aged 67) |
| Occupation | Author |
| Alma mater | University of California, Los Angeles University of California, Berkeley |
| Genre | Science fiction, fantasy, horror |
Michael Shea (July 3, 1946 – February 16, 2014) was an American fantasy, horror, and science fiction author. His novel Nifft the Lean won the World Fantasy Award, as did his novella Growlimb.
Life and work
Shea was born to Irish parents in Los Angeles in 1946. There he frequented Venice Beach and the Baldwin Hills for their wildlife. He attended UCLA and Berkeley and hitch-hiked twice across the US and Canada. At a hotel in Juneau, Alaska, Shea chanced on a battered book from the lobby shelves, The Eyes of the Overworld by Jack Vance (1966). Four years later, after a brief first marriage and one year hitch-hiking through France and Spain, he wrote a novel in homage to Vance, who graciously declined to share the advance offered by DAW Books. It was Shea's first publication, A Quest for Simbilis (1974), and an authorized sequel to Vance's two Dying Earth books then extant. ISFDB notes that it "became non-canonic" in 1983 when Vance "continued ... The Eyes ... in a different direction."
Subsequently, Shea ranged all over the L.A. Basin, painting houses and teaching English as a second language to adults by night. In 1978 he met his second wife, artist and author Lynn Cesar. They had two children: Adele and Jacob. Shea moved to the Bay Area where (prior to 1987) he held a variety of occupations, including instructor of languages, construction laborer, and night clerk in a Mission District flophouse.
In 1979 Shea published the story "The Angel of Death" (Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Aug 1979). This was followed in 1980 by "The Autopsy" (Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Dec 1980), a story nominated for both the Hugo Award and Nebula Award.
His next published work was the novella "Polyphemus" (Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Aug 1981). His story "The Frog" appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (Apr 1982). Shea was quiet for a few years but re-emerged with his second book, a collection of four linked novellas called Nifft the Lean (1982). Nifft showed that Shea had developed the exotic style of Vance and Clark Ashton Smith, plus the ingenuity of Fritz Leiber's Gray Mouser stories, to produce an extravagant quest novel. It won the 1983 World Fantasy Award as year's best novel.
Shea followed up with The Color out of Time (1984), a work influenced by the Cthulhu Mythos, and In Yana, the Touch of Undying (1985), about a vain opportunist's search for immortality in a land of fable. Polyphemus (1987) is a collection of deft science fiction and horror stories published by Arkham House.
Shea continued the adventures of Nifft in The Mines of Behemoth (Baen, 1997), serialised one year earlier in the Algis Budrys magazine Tomorrow Speculative Fiction, and in a novel The A'rak (2000). The Nifft stories are "sword-and-sorcery" modeled on Jack Vance, notable for their imaginative depiction of the world of demons and their blend of horror, flowery diction, and occasionally crude humor.
Shea's work overlaps the science fiction and fantasy genres, e.g., thematic use of demons and aliens that act as endoparasites. Shea's interest in Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos continued throughout his career. Copping Squid and Other Mythos Tales (2010) is a collection of such tales.
Shea died unexpectedly on February 16, 2014.
Adaptions
On 26th October 2022, a dramatization of “The Autopsy” streamed on Netflix as the third episode of “Guillermo do Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities.”
Awards
Shea has won major "year's best" awards, both conferred by the World Fantasy Convention and selected by open nominations and panel of judges.
- 1983 World Fantasy Award, Novel (Nifft the Lean)
- 2005 World Fantasy Award, Novella (The Growlimb)
His works have also been highly ranked, or one of a few finalists or nominees, for several other major awards.
- 1975 August Derleth Award (best novel), British Fantasy Society (A Quest for Simbilis)
- 1980 Nebula Award, Novelette (The Angel of Death)
- 1981 Hugo Award, Novelette (The Autopsy)
- 1981 Locus Award, Novella, fourth place (The Autopsy)
- 1981 Nebula Award, Novella (The Autopsy)
- 1988 World Fantasy Award, Collection (Polyphemus)
- 2005 International Horror Guild Award, Mid-Length Fiction (The Growlimb)
